


Five Times Jack Dies

by Kayasurin



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: A lot - Freeform, And I'm not nice to him, Because Jack dies, Graphic deaths, I'm not kidding he dies a lot, Jack Dies, M/M, Mind the warnings, Not kidding, Slow build Jackrabbit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-11 06:03:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3316874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/2389.html?thread=5548117#cmt5548117">Kink Meme Prompt</a>. Jack dies every year with the end of winter, and returns with the first breath of frost. It can cause problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Jack Overland laughed, and smiled through blind terror. He wasn't sure - didn't know how he knew where the staff was. Joke of a thing. Something to play with in the morning, use the hooked end to catch tree branches and shake the snow off onto their heads. It wasn't any fun unless they were both brushing their hair off and cold, anyways. He wasn't a bully.

He said the things, the right things, and Emma tottered closer to him, to the safe ice. Which was cold underfoot, he couldn't feel his toes, and Ma was going to be so angry with him. But he wasn't going to get frostbite, probably not, and even if he did Emma was worth a few toes.

He picked up the stick, and then he got her - he _got_ her. And she was _safe_.

But then the ice cracked under him.

His last thought - well, second to last - was that he wasn't going to get frostbite.

His _last_ -last thought was, simply, _worth it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters at once, 'cause this one's kinda short.


	2. Two

The flying wasn't as horrifying as it usually was. Aster supposed it was the exhaustion; between Easter run-up, and then the last three days, and the emotional rollercoaster, and the fighting, and facing down Pitch no less than three times... He was tired, and tired people didn't feel things as strongly. Like terror. He suffered mild unease, nothing more, as the sleigh was pulled through clouds and he got soaked through, one droplet at a time.

Sandy was curled up at his feet, looking quietly tired. His sands weren't drifting out into the night. He'd seen the Dreamweaver tired before, but this - this was like a dark, bloody night when a dear friend died to stop a monster, and the four of them had sworn an oath to try and - and it wasn't possible to match that sacrifice, but they had to try. They had to do something, didn't they? Because they were alive and _he_ was dead, and in the end his death hadn't been everything he'd hoped for, because Pitch was free. Weakened, limited, but free.

Tooth was curled up front with North, probably because of similar memories. Their friend had been the glue holding them together. Still was; if not for that memory, Aster would've said to hell with North - and Tooth, even Sandy - yonks ago. There wasn't any other reason to swallow insult after insult, except for silvery eyes staring at him from beyond, and a wry smile that said millions of things without a single sound. He was sure the others felt the same way, if not the same things.

Jack, their newest member, who joined them on a second dark night of fighting and misunderstandings and somehow pulling together anyways, was in the back with him. Aster... didn't mind. Even if he'd had the energy to mind, he was fairly certain he wouldn't. Everything was so muddled. Jack was an arse, Jack was a child, Jack liked wreaking havoc at Easter, Jack had looked so damn chuffed helping with the eggs. He'd betrayed them and he'd saved them... and he wasn't too sure, any more, about that supposed betrayal. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and Jack had looked... scared, approaching them.

He'd have to think on that. Meditate, even. Divorce himself of his emotions, the echoing twist of pain and fear and disbelief, the ache of being walked through, and look at what'd happened objectively. If he'd only kept his emotions divorced from his thoughts and actions... Well, he'd changed, to accommodate the others. It was easier for him to change, for them, than the other way around.

At any rate, Jack... he'd have to think about Jack.

But for the moment, he didn't mind.

He realized, after a moment, that Jack had tipped over sideways and was now leaning against him. Aster looked down, and studied the top of Jack's head. Silver hair, shorter and... fluffier, than his friend had sported. Almost the same shade, though. Which... hurt.

This was why he preferred not to bother with emotions. Mostly, they just hurt. And there wasn't anything he could stitch, or poultice, or bandage.

Jack was a slight pressure against his shoulder and bicep, no warmer than the air around them. Utterly silent, too; the sound of his breathing was drowned out by the gentle rush of air, and the jangling of the sleigh bells. Peaceful.

He was probably asleep.

In fact, Aster realized, suddenly amused, Jack was drooling in his sleep. On Aster's elbow. That was... at once both disgusting and endearing.

"That's enough of that," he muttered, several long minutes past sense. He shifted, and eased Jack away, until he was leaning back against the bench, and no longer mucking up Aster's fur. There was something odd about the drool glistening at the corner of his mouth and down his chin, but with the cloud all around them, it was hard to tell what.

Aster glanced down at his elbow, made a face at the red spot, and settled back against the bench himself.

His heart skipped a beat and lodged in his throat. Red?

"North! Land the damn sleigh right now!"

"What? Bunny-"

He swore, viciously enough that he felt Sandy jerk against his leg, and grabbed Jack's shoulders. "Jack? Jack!" He shook, lightly, and Jack's head lolled on his limp neck. The glistening line of drool - not drool, drool wasn't red and sticky - smeared a bit on his chin. "Jack, wake up!"

Nothing. Not a damn thing. Aster tucked the boy in against his neck, and started feeling for a pulse. "North, land now, Jack's bleeding!"

The damn Russian pressed his lips together in a grim line, and slapped the reins. "How bad?" he asked.

"Dunno. Can't see for shite. He won't wake up." And his pulse was... there. Just. Thready and weak, so he could barely feel it. Hadn't, for a good minute, and it'd gotten his adrenaline going like nothing else.

Wonder drug. He really had to find a way to synthesize it and put it in needles.

Not the point.

"Hang on, Jackie," he muttered, and clenched his eyes shut as the sleigh swooped and his stomach was left behind. "You just hang on."

Tooth joined him, one hand on his shoulder and the other cupping the back of Jack's head. Sandy squirmed up onto his lap. It was hard to argue. It wasn't like Sandy weighed very much, and he'd be left out of things if he wasn't right in the middle.

He kept his finger on Jack's neck, on that thin tickle that was Jack's pulse, and hoped.

Because Jack had only just joined them.

He wasn't sure how he felt about the boy yet.

Because it was just - just exhaustion and a bitten tongue, that had to be it, it couldn't be anything serious, because he'd have _noticed_ before this! Surely...

They were abruptly below the clouds, and Aster was able to get a good look at Jack.

The boy was pale. It was his natural state of being, from what Aster could remember. But there was pale, and then there was bloodless, and currently he was the later, except for that thin trail of red... No. Jack was going to be fine. Jack wasn't - he just wasn't.

Aster needed to sort out how he felt, and then sort out their relationship, first. Were they - were they going to be friends? Tolerate each other? Go back to sniping and snarling? He didn't know yet. Jack _had_ to be okay, because otherwise he'd never know.

He had to know.

So Jack _was_ going to be _okay_.

They landed. The usual terror of the ground rushing up far too fast was replaced with another kind, of his hand being jogged and then being unable to find Jack's pulse, of a quiet wheeze and then a choking, spluttering sound.

North helped him lift Jack out of the sleigh, and then cut the sweater off the boy. Tooth swore at the state of Jack's ribs, misshapen and coloured black and violet, from the back to the front. Sandy pressed a small hand against Jack's side, and looked confused, so confused, because what did he know about these things? He was a retired star, made of sand. He didn't break and he didn't bleed.

Aster cradled Jack in his arms, and felt for a pulse.

He almost cried when Jack twitched, and then the boy was thrashing as much as he was able. Not very. He coughed, and spluttered, and red foam flecked his lips and splattered against Aster's chest, staining the white fur.

"Jack," Tooth said, almost a wail. She cupped her hands around Jack's face. "Jack, no, no, North is there anything...?"

"I..." The human sank to his knees beside Aster, and took Jack's twitching hands in one of his own. "No," he murmured, and slumped.

There wasn't anything, Aster realized, and took a shuddering breath. Then another, and another, until he realized he was shaking, holding down the sounds of his grief.

This wasn't right. This wasn't right. They should have... there should have been something. They should have done something.

Jack gagged, and his body flexed like a bow, as if he was trying to touch the back of his head with his feet. Then he sagged, his broken ribcage no longer trying to flex as he breathed in and out. Because he wasn't breathing.

Sandy was the one to, carefully, gently, lower Jack's eyelids. North rested one big hand on Jack's forehead, in benediction or blessing, Aster didn't know. Tooth wiped at the blood on his lips and chin. Aster just held him.

Because there was nothing else they could do.

They stayed there, huddled around and curled over their - their companion, he wasn't a friend, they hadn't had a chance to be friends - his body, Jack's body, strewth but he was holding Jack's body.

Somewhere during the tears, the body turned to snow and crumbled away.

* * *

Jack's funeral wasn't like Sandy's. There weren't any elves playing sombre tunes with their hat-bells. There weren't any yeti, holding back tears. There weren't even any candles around Jack's place on the inlay, because he didn't _have_ a place.

There was just the four of them, and a pine tree that North had managed to grow up in the wasteland he called home. North left a Matryoshka, or the smallest doll at least, a baby in blue, with white hair and blue eyes. Tooth left Jack's tooth box, the only reason he'd agreed to help them in the first place. Aster wasn't sure if that was extortion or blackmail, maybe bribery... Not fair, whatever the proper term was.

Sandy left a sprinkling of golden sand over the snow. Aster left an Easter egg, painted blue with white frost patterns. They weren't as good as the real thing.

And then they left. They weren't the type to cry on each other's shoulders, that wasn't their relationship. Or at least, Aster wasn't the type to cry on their shoulders.

He... had some meditating to do. It was late, far too late, but he owed Jack.

* * *

It took five days to run through his memories of Jack, of a quiet youth who smiled and laughed and got walked through, who looked desperate for company and never got it.

Aster threw several glass eggs at the nearest wall, and let himself cry.

He'd been blind, so very blind, for three centuries. And now...

It wasn't right and it wasn't fair.

Some Guardian he'd been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters at once? Of course! The first one was ever so short, after all. Story is pretty much written, I just have to finish the final chapter. Then what the hey, I'll post one chapter a day.


	3. Two-Point-Oh

Aster... Well. People died. He was used to it, everyone died, sooner or later. Except him, but he was immortal. Even if all he was, was a head... eh, he'd regrow everything else. Eventually.

Immortality sucked. It really did.

He planted a tree for Jack. A Kousa Dogwood. White flowers in the spring, which seemed... fitting. He'd thought, at first, some sort of North American evergreen or something, but the dogwood had spoken to him, when he'd been rambling about, trying to think and not managing very much of it. Besides, the _Kousa_ Dogwood was immune to that damn anthracnose disease that killed _all his other_ attempts at dogwoods. That... seemed appropriate, too.

He thought, imagined, that Jack would laugh. If Aster explained himself. The flowers and the timing, the immunity and Aster's frustration over losing tree after tree to it... yeah. Jack would laugh. Maybe.

He drifted through summer, feeling a strange sort of grief. It wasn't, exactly, for Jack. He hadn't known the boy very well. At all, really. Which was hardly fair, since he'd had three centuries of being annoyed by him. He could've - he _should've_ \- talked to Jack. A quick chinwag or two wouldn't have put him behind on Easter runs, and it wasn't like that was the only time he was up and out of the Warren, after all.

Aster grieved for lost chances, he supposed. If Jack had lived, he'd... what? Apologize? There was a lot he had to apologize for, he supposed. Nebulous things, mostly. It wasn't like he'd ever _hit_ Jack, just brushed him off and yelled a bit. Or a lot. Once he apologized for that, though, what was left? Beyond feeling out their relationship from there, though it didn't much matter now.

Jack's tree lost its flowers. That... was a surprise. Aster kept his Warren at a permanent spring-time, though a bit of fiddling with his magic and the climate let his vegetables and fruit trees grow and ripen properly. But for his flowers, it was always spring, always a time to show off the blossoms. Unless they were summer or autumn flowers, in which case, it was back to the fiddling.

Jack's tree... He watched it, after that. Without the flowers it was an almost plain shrub, no higher than Aster's shoulder at this point. He stopped wondering what was going on when he saw the first budding fruits. That explained that; his spells were rather generic and over the entire Warren. The Kousa Dogwood had edible fruits.

Now, if he only knew why it was matching the Northern hemisphere's seasons... Ah, it didn't matter. Autumn fruit in the Australian spring, and he didn't have to travel for it. Why question it?

The fruit continued to swell and bud, swell and bud, until the branches were laden with the hard little bumps. Aster checked every day, and realized he was smiling when he found the first fruit, bright red and a little bigger than his thumb-claw.

Life from death. He had to remember that. The flowers died, but their life - and then death - provided the plant with the means to grow fruit, and from the fruit seeds, which would in turn grow new trees.

Jack was dead. But life continued.

The dogwood, as if that first berry was the trigger, seemed to take on autumn colors overnight. The bright red was quite the shock when he walked outside that first morning. For a long, long moment, he was reminded of Jack's last minutes, of cradling the boy to his chest, and of the red froth dotting his lips.

That afternoon, the Aurora blazed across the sky.

Aster would have ignored it, wanted to, but the colors were for the emergency beacon. North had three settings, he'd told them when he'd first created the thing. There was one for a general gathering, no emergency. There was one for a non-urgent emergency. And then there was one, this one, for - as he'd described it - "World ending peril, my friends!"

The last time North had used the world ending peril beacon, Jack had been chosen... and died.

Aster brushed his hands off, and headed for his tunnel.

It was hard not to remember another run, not even last year, and all that'd happened because of it. If North had pulled the Aurora because of Pitch, again... Aster bared his teeth and ran faster.

He all but leapt from the rabbit hole, and looked around. Rage was a good way to ignore the cold, though it didn't last very long. Something about seeing North's workshop, the windows and doors iced over and a crowd of yeti at all the blocked-off doors.

Aster shivered when a cold wind curled around him, and twitched when... no. Just in case, though, he glared around him, and rubbed his haunch.

... The wind hadn't _goosed_ him, of all things. The cold was making him delusional.

He hurried over to the yeti, and hovered at the edges of the nearest group. One of them, the biggest, most burly of the group, was pounding on the ice with both fists and yelling gibberish. Even Aster, who was the most fluent in Yetish, couldn't make out much. Angrish-Yetish, utterly incomprehensible.

"Bunny!" Tooth shocked a good decade onto his physical age when she popped up out of nowhere to hover beside him. "Did you just get here? Do you know what's going on? Sandy and I are with North - over this way."

Aster spluttered a bit, and followed after her around the workshop, almost to the exact other side from the first group of yeti. The elves were outside too, he noticed, playing in the snow and trying to swim through the drifts. Since the snow had been packed as hard as rock, they weren't having much luck with that.

North and Sandy were huddled together next to a window. Aster twitched at another cold breeze about his haunches - he _had_ to be imagining things, like ghostly fingers that didn't know anything about personal boundaries - and they looked just as confused as he felt.

"So," he said, and after yet another ghostly caress - not a caress! - he did his best to duck behind North for a bit of shelter. "What's going on? You set off the beacon and ran out here to get locked out?" Or maybe North was testing a new security system, and things had gotten a... little out of hand.

That had to be it. It was the only explanation that made sense.

Aster frowned, and then blinked when North shrugged out of his coat and shoved it at him. "You will turn into frozen rabbit without," he said, as if that explained anything. It didn't. North had never given Aster anything, be it for Christmas or any other time of year.

Which had contributed absolutely nothing to his dislike of North's holiday.

He rolled his eyes, more at himself than anything, and pulled on the coat. "Thanks."

"So," Tooth prompted. Sandy made a gesture with his hands, an odd sort of roll that Aster had seen children use before. Apparently it meant 'get on with it'.

It was at that point that the clouds opened up.

Aster hunched his shoulders and breathed a quiet thanks that they were up at the north pole and not, for instance, further south. Where instead of snow, it'd be freezing rain. He could shake the snow off a lot easier than he could shake out the wet. And with North's coat, he didn't even have to worry about that.

"This is not security system," North said, and glared at the ice. If metaphors were a bit more literal, Aster thought, the ice would have melted and they could just walk in. "I went out... I have been trying for more hands on, yes? I come back, and Этот!" He waved at the nearby yeti and elves. "I have been locked out of my own workshop! And I don't even know what set off beacon, or why..."

Aster huddled in the oversized coat, and tilted one ear towards the nearby yeti. Someone had mentioned something about flamethrowers...

There was something odd, just at the corner of his eyes... He turned to look at it, but it wasn't there. Like the ghostly fingers that had... taken liberties with his behind... it had to be all in his imagination.

Right?

Besides, what would make him see flickers of blue, anyways?

He shook his head, and tried to pay attention to the conversation, but it was hard. There was something, some emotion trying to bubble up in his chest. After a bit of thinking, he realized he was trying not to laugh.

North and his minions had been locked out of their own home.

"But what about a snowglobe?" Tooth asked.

North muttered something. Tooth punched his shoulder, so he cleared his throat and spoke louder. "I am out."

"Out?"

"It was short trip! I used all of snowglobes I had on me!"

That was... actually rather funny.

Sandy began pantomiming Aster opening a tunnel, and that... that was funny, too. No one could ever get the double-tap right, and Sandy trying... in midair no less... Aster felt the corners of his lips twitching, and had to forcibly suppress his amusement to keep from offending anyone.

"Sorry, mate," he said, giddy bubbles fizzing at the back of his throat. "North's wards are too good. 'S why I always come up outside the place, even if it is cold enough ta freeze mah bullocks off."

" _Thank_ you for that image," North snapped, though he was grinning.

"So lower the wards," Tooth told North.

"Ah..." North ducked his head, and mumbled something into his beard.

Tooth stared at him. They all did, in fact. Aster noticed, absently, that the elves had given up on their swimming attempt and were now throwing snowballs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that," Tooth finally said.

"Access is only from inside," North said, a little louder. "Security feature."

Tooth snorted, and turned away from them. Aster did as well, because he couldn't hide his grin anymore.

Whatever was going on... it was absurd, it was. North had been locked out of his own home. There was no way - none - for him to get back in short of knocking a hole in the wall.

The nearby yeti began to back away and, he supposed, plot a new course of action. One of them seemed to be having a giggle fit. As he watched, the group began to brighten, look more amused and less furious.

It was only when that group of yeti began to join the elves in their snowball fight that Aster thought that, maybe, there was something else urging on the good humour.

And when the rest of the yeti joined in, he was sure of it.

"North," he began, when there was an almighty _crack_ and the door nearest them slammed open, scattering shards of ice every which way. The shards were too small to be dangerous; the edges weren't even sharp. If anything, it looked like broken safety glass.

"That... is either very good sign," North said.

"Or very bad," Tooth finished.

Aster looked over at Sandy, and nodded. He gave North his coat back, and followed the Dreamweaver through the door. The two of them were the most durable; if this was dangerous, they'd be able to weather any injury a sight easier than the other two. Sandy could just reform his sand, and Aster could regrow pretty much everything.

Including parts of his brain, he supposed, though he'd thankfully not tested _that_ out.

Though there'd been the time he'd lost a hand... He didn't like remembering it.

Inside the workshop, everything looked normal. Except for the lack of activity, of course. But the lights were still working; a good thing since the polar sunlight wasn't getting through the iced over windows very well. If they'd been stuck with only that for illumination, even Aster, who had the best night sight, would've been walking into tables.

The floor had been iced over until it was mirror smooth.

North managed to fall over five times before they'd made it halfway to the stairs.

Aster, the only other land-bound member of their party, grinned and deliberately scratched his claws against the ice. North glowered at him.

Once they were clustered at the base of the stairs, Aster turned his attention up, towards the globe and North's controls for the Aurora and who knew what else. _Someone_ was up there; he could hear the faint sounds of fabric brushing against itself, and the even fainter sounds of breathing. He nodded to the others, and held up one finger. Unless there were zombies about, there was just one intruder they needed to worry about.

North drew his swords, surprisingly quietly, and began to creep up the stairs. Tooth walked; the buzzing of her wings had been surprisingly loud when they'd crossed the room, but walking hadn't been an option. Not only did she have less experience with walking on ice than everyone else, but her... footwear... could have just been bare feet for all Aster knew. He couldn't see toes, but the way her feet flexed and bent without the impediment of thick soles...

She was probably wearing thin slippers, something more suited to warm, Indian temperatures. Whatever they were, they weren't suited for the cold ice.

The stairs were better, at least. And she was able to climb nearly silently, except for the odd rustle of feathers and her breathing. Much like their intruder, above.

Sandy had the easiest time of it, floating like he normally did. He just went low and slow, keeping pace with the rest of them, instead of shooting to the top.

And then they were at the top of the stairs.

Aster stepped around North, who'd frozen in shock. "What," he demanded, turning to their intruder. "Is... it... What?"

Jack grinned, bright and happy and with just the hint of an edge. "Hey guys," he chirped, and Aster was suddenly reminded of seeing this boy countless times before, popping up in the most unexpected of places and disturbing Aster's serenity. Which he was doing again, just in a whole new and different way. "Miss me?"

And then he got them all with snowballs. Snowballs that sparkled blue on bursting.

Aster's laughter had everything to do with relief, and nothing to do with the way North spluttered and Tooth flailed about, trying to get all the snow off her face.

Well. _Mostly_ nothing to do with that.

* * *

"But _why_ ," Jack asked, eyes dancing and words almost distorted by the giant grin, "did you _hug_ me? Not that I mind, but Bunny! Don't you know the _bro code_?"

"No," he said, and realized he was touching Jack's shoulder just seconds after the winter sprite looked down at his hand, and cackled. He recoiled, and clutched his hand to his chest, which only made the boy cackle more.

He had a very good cackle. Sounded extremely deranged and everything.

"Jack," Tooth said, and then she squealed and dove. Jack squawked and flailed, managing not to hit anyone with hand or staff, and ended up on the floor with Tooth's fingers in his mouth.

"Oh, they're so bright - and you're okay!" She pulled her hands out of his mouth, and promptly started to strangle the boy in her enthusiasm. Not that Jack seemed to mind, if the muffled laughter and the way he hugged her back meant anything. All the same, Aster reached down and gently separated the two. Not much, just enough that Jack could breathe again.

And then North ruined everything by grabbing the three of them up in a bear hug and doing his best to squeeze them all lifeless. Aster squirmed, but wasn't able to free himself - or anyone else. He was fairly certain his back popped, and not in a good way.

North let them down, and laughed. "Jack, you must tell us!"

Sandy nodded, and shoved his way into their little cluster. His flailing sand shapes threatened to go everywhere, including Aster's eyes. It wouldn't be painful like real sand was, but he'd be asleep for at _least_ a handful of hours, and... no. Thank you, no.

There was a reason why he stayed awake as long as possible, until he collapsed, half-dead, into a coma.

"Tell you guys what?" Jack asked, ending on a chuckle, as he sauntered towards the window seat. "How I got the yeti and elves out of the workshop? Because that? That was fun. That was incredibly fun. I have taken over the workshop. Mine now. I'm going to charge rent."

North ignored that last part, though Aster was sure he'd regret it later. "That is good question, but no! Jack, you were... dead." The large human sobered, and spread his hands. "And now you are not. This is very good, we are all happy, but... how?"

Aster wondered if they _were_ all being as stupid as Jack seemed to think, going by his expression. There was a wealth of scientism and disbelief there, as well as a touch of humour and even of glee.

"You mean you don't know?" he asked, and Aster was sure, now, that Jack thought they were all incompetent morons.

"Don't know what?" Tooth asked, echoed by Sandy's images. The sandman looked especially frustrated. "It... it wasn't like with Sandy," she said, and Jack frowned. "He was still alive... sort of. And the children's belief brought him back to full strength. But you..."

"Have few believers? If any, after the summer..." Jack looked to the side, and tapped a rhythm on his staff. Aster was sure it was a rhythm, at least; it seemed deliberate. "But wow. You guys are kind of out of touch with other spirits, aren't you?"

"What do you mean by that?" Aster moved over to Jack, and rested his hand on the boy's shoulder. Deliberately this time. There was something reassuring about the contact, the slight give of the thick sweater over the bony solidity of Jack's actual flesh, the faint chill of the frost patterns melting under his hand, and the odd warmth of Jack's self. He'd have thought the winter sprite to radiate cold, instead of being about as warm as a human.

Jack's grin was wicked. He also leaned into the contact, right before grabbing Aster by the wrist and pulling. It was enough of a shock that he sat down, right next to Jack.

Once more, he had the winter sprite leaning against him. This time, there wasn't any drool, but the déjà vu was enough to make him twitch. Jack frowned up at him, before shrugging and pressing even closer.

Aster, just to keep Jack's shoulder from cutting off circulation from his elbow down, shifted to wrap his arm around Jack's shoulders. That felt better.

And it was also a bit more... personable than he was exactly comfortable with, at the moment. But at the same time... It was nice. He could feel Jack's subtle shifting as he breathed, smell the winter sprite's hair and skin, feel both the chill and warmth against his arm and side.

So far as it went, he'd put up with the slight emotional discomfort for the reassurance.

Of course, he realized, he also had to deal with the other three, who all looked varying degrees of _gleeful_. He wrinkled his nose at them, and brushed at his chest, where Jack's blood had once stained his fur. Tooth, at least, winced, while the other two sobered.

Jack snorted. "So," he said, and stretched his legs out. "Who wants to tell me how I kicked it?"

North wasn't the only one to gape at Jack, he was just the first to recover from the shock. "How you...?"

"Croaked, kicked the bucket, gave up the ghost, dropped off, became no more, go way of all flesh, breathed my last, bought a one-way ticket, bit the dust, cashed in my chips... _die_." Jack peered from once face to the next, practically vibrating under Aster's arm. His grin was blinding. "Tell me it was awesome. Right? Blaze of glory, saved you all, songs will be sung, yadda yadda and blah blah blah."

Tooth covered her mouth with both hands, and blinked back tears. "Jack," she murmured.

Jack wrinkled his nose. "Oh, come on, tell me it wasn't something stupid."

"Your injuries," Aster breathed, and smoothed his hand down Jack's back. "Your ribs..."

"Oooh, internal bleeding." Jack paused to, apparently, consider that. "Eh, I guess that's okay."

"Jack!" North bellowed. "What do you mean, okay?"

Jack raised his eyebrows, and leaned against Aster again. "Well, I'm not going to be winning any competitions this year, but you have to be a masochist to try _every_ year. Besides, I'm still coasting on the beehive incident, I don't really need to top that for the rest of the century."

"Beehive..." Aster murmured, and shook his head. He didn't want to know. "Jack, what're you _talking_ about?"

The boy looked amused. "I'm a _seasonal_ ," he said, stressing the title, as if that explained everything.

Sandy made several rude shapes in the air, and folded his arms.

"What he said," North agreed.

"You... really don't know?" Jack seemed to sober a touch, and cleared his throat. "Seasonal sprites... we're only alive _during_ our season, guys. Spring sprites wake up in the spring, and kick it in the summer... Winter sprites wake up with the first snows and pass with the last of them. In North America, at least," he amended, looking thoughtful. "I dunno about, like, Africa. Monsoon season, maybe?"

"But," Tooth stammered. "But you, you're awake now, you-"

"Frost," Jack said, and shrugged. "I'm kinda weird. Autumn to the last frost, which sometimes?" He smiled faintly. "Fourth of July fireworks are really neat... I don't get to see them too often, but I did a couple years ago... a decade, I think? That was a good one."

Aster shuddered. "You mean that's _normal_?" he demanded. "You just... passing away like that?"

"Uh, yeah?" Jack peered up at him through his bangs. "Every year, just like clockwork." He paused, and made a face. "Okay, sometimes I kick it early, but it's easier to take the other guy out if I accept a few killer blows in return, right? It's not like I'm not going to _come back_."

Aster shuddered again, and tightened his grip about Jack's shoulders.

Dying was normal for the boy.

... But he came back. Jack came back.

He had a chance to make things right, again, the way he'd wished for.

He wasn't going to waste it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bunny doesn't realize the bro code prohibits emotional glomping-and-sobbing-over-your-returned-from-the-dead-friend. Jack doesn't mind, but wow. Awkward. Also, he has fur in h is mouth.
> 
> And no, the beehive incident will not be explained. Awesome as it was... no.


	4. Three

"Bunny's acting weird," Jack said, from his perch on the window sill. Though _perch_ and _window sill_ were not quite the right words, anymore, not after the renovations. His friends all thought he was unobservant, and usually North was - it hadn't been until very recently that he realized he was not close friends with Bunny and Tooth and Sandy, like he had thought. In a way, he owed Pitch his thanks. Not only did they gain Jack as a companion, but Pitch's actions showed how isolated they all were. And North, at least, valued the friendships he'd thought he had. He was more, much more than just willing to put the effort into making the friendships a reality.

All that said, he had noticed almost at once Jack's preference for window perches, and deduced how uncomfortable they had to be. So, in effort to encourage the winter sprite's company in his office, he had done a bit of carpentry work. It had been enjoyable; it was rare, these days, that he had the chance to work properly with his hands once more.

So now the window sill was a window seat, deep enough for even North to sprawl out at his ease, the painted and carved wood padded with thick cushions. The colors had been chosen with Jack in mind; deep blues and gentle silvers, and the first time the boy had seen the new perch, he'd looked wary and ready to bolt.

North had laughed, and made light of the situation. After all, he'd said, Jack was not the only one to enjoy looking out at snowy fields with a mug of hot cocoa. And, he'd added, he'd had to make the cushions himself, or the yeti would have made it all red and white. Again.

He sighed, remembering. Yes, he was Santa, and yes, he was Russian... but that did not make red his favourite color, nor white a perfect complement.

Jack shifted, turning to look at him, eyelids drooping and his entire body lax. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes," North assured him. "I did. I was thinking on what you said. My mind left the office without me."

Jack grinned at that, as he was supposed to. "So?" he asked, as though he were not most of the way to sleep. "Bunny's being weird."

Yes, now that North was finally paying attention to his friend, he had to agree. Bunny was, in Jack's words, being weird. At least, in comparison to their earliest interactions. "He worries for you."

Jack wrinkled his nose, looking like nothing more than a young boy staying up long past his bedtime, and needing a bit of tucking in before sleep. "What for?" he complained. He drifted for a soft moment, his eyes half-closed and his breathing gentle. The moment past, and Jack opened his eyes to stare at North. "You're not going to get weird, are you?"

North chuckled, and looked down at his papers. Toy ideas and scraps of paper with names scrawled over them, work rosters and the weekly menu. Jack was not comfortable being watched for long periods of time, it seemed, and it was always good to have props available.

That was where, North thought, Bunny took a misstep. He _watched_ Jack, any time they were together. He sat next to the boy, touched him frequently, as though always desperate to confirm Jack was there, was real, was alive. And Jack, while clearly as amused by the attention as he was bemused, never quite settled into comfort.

That was where their two approaches differed, North and Bunny. North, well, Ombric had started the magic lessons by sending North out in the spring, to feed wild birds by hand. A mage, or a wizard like North, needed to know patience before he learnt spells. And Jack, Jack was so very much like those wild birds. He had to be the one to approach, and then only after careful consideration.

This Jack, sleepy with the onset of spring and the mild winter, relaxed in his office, this was the prize for being careful. For toning his natural exuberance to something less overwhelming. For refraining from hugs and hair ruffling, because Jack did not know what to do with those things.

Bunny did not know how to do that, it seemed, but fortunately Jack was as focused on that overgrown rabbit, as Bunny was on Jack.

"I shall try not to," he promised, and Jack hummed in agreement.

"Good," he said, and rolled onto his back. "I don' like it when people're weird."

North smiled at that, and leaned back in his chair. "Oh?" he asked.

Jack snuffled, and scrubbed the back of his wrist over his nose. "Yeah," he said, his words slowing and thickening. North had seen it time and again in children as they fell asleep, and it was no less endearing now, though he knew what came after.

Jack, normally immune to Sandy's powers, slept but for minutes at a time. And only on the last day he, well... _existed_.

That first time, seeing Jack die, had been traumatic. It had made them all clingy, Bunny most of all, as he was the one to hold Jack, to have the boy's blood on his fur. It had been horrible, both because they had not known Jack was injured, he hadn't told him (and if they had known, what could they have done? Jack would have died anyways, perhaps a few days or weeks later) and that hurt. But it had hurt too, because they had not known.

Five years in, and it still hurt. Jack was never left alone when the day of his passing came nigh. But nothing, nothing would ever make it easier, not even the knowledge that Jack would return with the autumn frost, bright and energetic and ready to have fun. Because before Jack returned, first he had to leave...

Thus far, save that first time, Jack's leave-takings from them were peaceful things. He would drift off to sleep, and then from sleep to snow, which melted magically fast no matter where he was.

And every time North thought about it, his heart gave a wrench.

He looked up from his papers, and checked on Jack again. The boy was still awake, but only just. His lashes fluttered against his cheek, a fan of dark hairs made all the darker by the bloodless hue of his skin. North was no artist, not like Bunny, but even he could tell the effect was a striking one.

He watched, as quiet and unmoving as Jack, as the boy's breathing began to slow. This, it looked like, would be a peaceful sleep.

Until - yes, there. Jack's body gave a single convulsion, and he cried out once, just barely audible. His throat flexed and his mouth opened, and his body twisted as he tried to suck in a breath that would not come.

Drowning, North had thought, the first time he saw this. Jack had confirmed, the next autumn, that he had become a spirit after he had died. That he had drowned under the ice, after saving his sister from that very fate.

Jack slumped to the cushions, the faint anguish twisting his eyebrows fading away. North stood up and moved over to the window seat, and rested one hand on Jack's forehead. The skin was cool, and Jack's heart was clearly no longer beating. Yet he hoped the touch gave Jack some comfort, wherever his spirit went during the warmer months. As much comfort as a memory of a similar touch gave North, though he couldn't remember the man who had done it.

"Rest well, Jack," he murmured. "We will see you in the autumn."

Not long after, the boy's body turned to snow, that crumbled and melted away with magic speed.

North pulled out a bottle of vodka, and began to sip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a question about "What about when Jack doesn't GET KILLED" and it hits spring. Have an answer. Have a North POV. I like making North get character development, because he was kind of people-stupid in the movie.


	5. Four

Jack screamed.

So did Bunny. Of course, Jack's upper body fell on him.

And _only_ Jack's upper body.

The Ahi reared back, legs dangling from its mouth, ice covering the top of its head and eyes. When it opened its head to screech in annoyance - the ice couldn't have been comfortable - Jack's legs fell to the ground.

Tooth closed out the sounds of Bunny screaming, and the sight of her friend clinging to Jack's torso. Jack... was still alive enough to cling back, though his time was being measured in seconds now.

The Ahi shook its head, and was distracted long enough for her to finally get through its guard.

Tooth made short work of the snake at that point. The problem with fighting the Ahi was its speed, and the fact that it had all the intelligence of a particularly _stupid_ rock. It didn't necessarily need to be killed - though oh, she was _tempted_ right now - and it served a part in India's spiritual ecology. But it was as fast as she was, it was fully capable of eating her fairies - and her! - and she had thought enlisting the other two speedy Guardians would make driving the Ahi back to its mountains easier.

Obviously not.

It seemed the fight had gone out of the Ahi, though. Jack's ice, she supposed, which refused to be flung off. Granted, the snake was a form of winter spirit, but there was an _ocean_ of difference between Indian winters, and North America's.

_That_ ice seemed to have come from Minnesota. Worlds above and away from the winter monsoons the snake was used to.

Once she was certain the Ahi was retreating, Tooth spun and darted back to her friends. The snake wasn't smart enough to change its mind a second time. At this rate, it wouldn't come back until summer, when it was _supposed_ to drink up all the water.

"Jack," she breathed, and purposefully folded her wings and fell. The fall turned into a skipping run as soon as her feet hit the dirt, and she fell to her knees beside Bunny, beside Jack, somehow still alive, impossible though it seemed. "Oh no, Jack, no."

Should she touch him? His face was a rictus of pain, eyes clenched shut and teeth bared as though... she had no idea.

"Jack?" Bunny lifted the young man up a touch. "Jackie?"

"Bunny?" Jack's eyes snapped open, so very blue and crazed. His lungs must not have been damaged, because he was still breathing. "Tooth."

"We're here, Jack," Tooth said.

"The snake?"

"Gone," she promised him.

Jack relaxed at that, though it was by an infinitesimal degree. "Good," he said, and the tight grip he had on Bunny's arm eased. "Good."

What should they do? Get Jack to - someplace with proper medical supplies, something...

"It's okay," Jack said, and caught her hand. "It's okay, Tooth. I'll... be back. Autumn."

At that every muscle went slack. "It's so peaceful," he murmured. She didn't think they were supposed to have heard him, but they did. Bunny, at least, flinched.

And then Jack was gone.

* * *

Tooth washed Bunny off, and settled him down on the fainting couch in her personal quarters. He was as responsive as a sleepwalker, possibly a little less. That was twice now Jack had died in his arms, and he was taking it harder than the first time.

The first time... Tooth sighed, and sent her girls out on their duties. No matter what, the teeth needed to be collected.

There weren't many witches, now, but what they had in rarity they made up for with cruelty and inventiveness. No matter what had just happened - oh, holy Rama, Jack had been bitten in _half_ \- the teeth needed to be taken to safety. And the children needed a quarter in exchange... or regional equivalent. When Europe had switched to a single Euro across the board, she had been equal parts incensed and relieved. It made things so much simpler...

Not the point.

It was barely November. What would this do to Jack's rebirth? Would he wake up soon, like someone who had dropped off unexpectedly? Or would they have to wait until next autumn for him to come back? Or - it couldn't have interfered, could it? Jack had implied he'd 'kicked it early' when he'd first explained to them all, and even ten years wasn't going to dull that memory.

Especially not her memory.

Just in case, she lit several sticks of incense at her little altar to Ganesh. It never hurt to ask for help.

* * *

The winter that followed became quite, quite strange.

It had started normally, but it seemed the instant Jack died - temporarily, she reassured herself - the weather went mad.

It was primarily confined to North America, which only made sense when she thought on it. It was the first frost in North America - specifically the area closet to Burgess and Jack's lake - that brought their winter sprite back, and the last frost in the same area that sent him away. If it had been all of the northern hemisphere, who knew when he'd come back and go away! Especially when one considered parts of the north pole claimed by the United States, that were frozen the entire year through.

Europe got some of the difficulties as well, rather like ripples spreading across a pond.

First, the snow stopped falling. And then, it wouldn't stop.

Places that rarely got frost even in January ended up with snow up to their knees. Texas was temporarily shut down through December. They simply did not have the resources to deal with the veritable avalanche falling out of the clouds. Minnesota, on the other hand, got only the barest dusting of white powder, and was positively balmy in comparison.

California froze and New York sweltered. Alaska was barely touched, save that it was possible for a man to walk from Kodiak Island to Vancouver, with how thickly the Gulf of Alaska had frozen. The effect lasted two weeks, and some rescue force or other had been called out when a group of overenthusiastic hikers needed to be picked up from the quickly melting ice.

The human scientists and news casters blamed global warming.

The Guardians, during one of their meetings, agreed that it was rather more related to Jack's death.

Spring, when it came, was a relief. The weather settled down once Bunny's season was well on its way, and Jack's return was that much sooner.

* * *

Tooth let herself in to the Warren, and found Bunny quickly enough. It wasn't as if he was hiding; he was sitting out in the open, a sketchpad on his lap and a longing expression on his face.

"You're thinking about Jack," she said, and dropped down next to him.

Poor Bunny, she thought, when he looked up at her.

"I can't do anything," he whispered. "I can't save him. He's going to keep dying every year. I don't care if that's what's normal, it _hurts_." He clenched his fist against his chest, and closed his eyes.

Tooth wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and wished... She wished many things. Her friend was hurting, and another friend - however accepting he seemed of the situation - had been doomed to miss out on half a life.

She could neither encourage Bunny to reach for Jack, nor tell him to draw away.

Whatever Bunny did, it would hurt him.

If only there was something she could do to help.

* * *

Jack dropped down into his seat, and Tooth felt it was fair to say he shocked all of them out of at least a year. Each.

"Jack!" She caught him in a hug, and then pulled away, feeling confused and not at all liking the feeling. "Jack, it's September, what are you - how are you -?"

"Early frost," he said, grinning, and tapped his knuckles to Bunny's shoulder in greeting. "What's up, Doc?"

"Don't call me that."

Jack huffed, and waved at North and Sandy. "I'd hug you guys, but there's a table in the way." He turned back to Tooth. "There's going to be an Indian summer, I can feel it, but that'll give me time to pull some strings and get things more normal before winter rolls in. Hate it when I get taken out early, everything gets so messed up, it takes forever to sort things out..."

Tooth smiled, and looked over at Bunny.

Oh dear. He was looking down at Jack, and clearly everything was right in his universe once more. That... did not bode well.

Even hope could shatter, when a heart broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just remember, I warned for lots of nasty death. And this is me. Of course they're going to suffer. Also, bad things happen when Jack dies early... and they've just been getting worse.


	6. Five

"Hey, Sandy?" Jack flew up beside him, the bags under his eyes big enough to hide in. "Can I talk to you for a bit?"

Of course. He extended a bit of his mass, currently pillow shaped, for Jack. The flesh being (he really needs to figure out how to share his descriptors for everyone, he thought Jack would find them funny) beamed-not-literally and dropped down beside him.

"So," Jack said, and yawned. Most people yawned around Sandy. He took it as a compliment. "You've known Bunny for a long time, haven't you?"

Sandy smiled and nodded, and showed an image of a calendar flicking back, and back, and back through months and years. Jack grinned, non-verbal sign of understanding, and nodded.

"So, uh. You know the stuff he likes?"

Oh, that was easy. Eggs, Easter, children, painting. Jack seemed to laugh and sigh at the same time, which was _fascinating_. How oh how did humans make so many different sounds?

"That's not... I meant for, like, gifts."

Sandy frowned, distracted from the laugh-sigh. Gifts? For Bunny? That was a good question.

After a minute, he had an answer. Eggs, and Easter, and painting. Not children. You weren't supposed to trade people around like cards.

After a minute (and ten-eleven-twelve seconds) Jack huffed. "I almost understood that. Sounds like Bunny has a very _narrow_ set of interests."

Sandy shrugged. Didn't everyone?

Jack sighed, and curled up in a way that did not seem possible. Human limbs bent in very specific ways. Shouldn't having his knees up against his chest crush his lungs? Sandy poked at Jack's shoulder, because crushed lungs were bad.

Flesh bodies were very fragile and blood was bad.

"I have no idea what you're saying," Jack said, in the tone of voice everyone called 'deadpan'. Although what a deceased frying pan had to do with vocal tones, Sandy did not know and could not begin to guess.

Everyone complained about dream logic, but waking logic was much, much worse. Clearly!

But Jack uncurled a little, and Sandy relaxed.

Why did Jack want to get Bunny a present, anyways? Because Bunny was sad when Jack went away?

"He is? I mean, yeah, everyone seems to be, but..." Jack coughed. Sandy pressed one hand-shape to his chest. Coughing was bad, wasn't it?

"I'm fine, Sandy," Jack said, and rested a hand-limb on Sandy's back. "I, uh, no, I don't want to get a present for when I... go away. I want to get him a present because... oh, heck Sandy, I like Bunny. A lot. You know?"

He thought about it for a minute, while stretching himself to sleeping children. Fish and horses and dolphins and airplanes were everywhere. He liked them. Chickens too, though he wasn't sure why chickens. He focused back on Jack, who was waiting patiently.

Jack liked Bunny? More than he liked Sandy?

"Differently, not more."

The part of him that spent time with Koz-Pitch chuckled, dark and sly. Jack wanted to _sleep with_ Bunny, where there wasn't any sleep but there was a lot of grunting and liquids and effort. He kept that part quiet, because Jack would get embarrassed, but it was a good point. Besides, he thought Jack wanted more than just grunting and liquids. That's good, wanting more. He smiled, beaming-not-literally, and considered what Jack could do.

He bounced, getting Jack's attention. Jack could bring Bunny flowers! His darker side maked him show flowers that are heavily associated with romance and not sex, because not even his darker side wanted to make Jack shriek and flail and fall off Sandy's cloud-part.

Well. Mostly not. His darker side is, well, darker.

And Jack flies, so it would be okay. It would be funny!

Jack instead blushed bright colors and frost, which was almost as fun as flying with Jack. "I - yeah, okay, but Sandy! That's so... anyone could do that! I want to do something no one else can do!"

Ooooooh that is a good point. Sandy nodded, and thought about it.

Then he suggested Jack help with Easter.

Jack sighed. "I'd love to, but... well, Easter's over for the year, so next year, but I'm still cleaning up after last year. Remember?"

Yes. Sandy had been very not-happy with Pitch. He was keeping Pitch in Pitch's lair, right now, so they could have tea parties and then Pitch wouldn't hurt Jack again. He didn't like when his friends were hurt. He was being very careful with Pitch, too, because Pitch was a flesh body and those bruised.

Had something happened last year?

Jack frowned. "I died, remember?"

Sandy looked confused, and then nodded. Dying meant going away and not coming back. But Jack came back. It was very confusing. His darker side was confused as well, even though his darker side spent the most time with Koz-Pitch.

And oh, that was right, the winter weather had been odd. Maybe. It was sometimes hard to notice, he was always so busy with dreams.

"It's okay, Sandy. I'm glad it doesn't bother you as much as the others."

What didn't bother him as much as the others? Which others?

Jack sighed and lay back on Sandy's cloud-part. "I just want to get him something that... lets him know how special he is. To me. To everyone, but especially to me." He turned and looked at Sandy. "You know?"

Yes, Sandy knew. That was why his darker side had tea and cookies with Koz-Pitch. It was important to let people know how much you cared about them.

Something special meant not eggs, or Easter, or painting. Or children. Although Jack could probably give Bunny children, but that sort of thing was apparently awkward before shiny gold stuff was exchanged. Sandy would happily give them some of his sand-stuff, but he didn't think that counted.

Sandy lit up, his glow intensifying, and made a suggestion. Jack grinned, and nodded.

"That's a good idea, Sandy. Thanks." Jack yawned. "Mind if I stay here, for a little?"

Of course not. Jack would be going to sleep soon, Sandy could feel it in his grains. Jack rarely slept and never dreamt, and that was very sad. Maybe being on Sandy's cloud-part would help him dream.

"Thanks, Sandy," Jack murmured, and closed his eyes.

He didn't sleep for very long. Sandy frowned when Jack began to dream, but it wasn't a good dream and then the dream stopped. So did Jack's sleep. That was sad.

Jack turned into snow, which was also sad. He sent good dreams to the nearby children to compensate, while in Koz-Pitch's lair his darker side cuddled his friend and fed him a cookie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sandy came out weird. I feel like I should apologize for that.


	7. Zero

Spring. For the longest time he'd seen spring as an enemy impossible to beat; implacable, inevitable, something he could neither trick, negotiate with, or run away from. It sure didn't escape him that a lot of people said that was _winter_ , but, well, what did they know? You could run away from winter - look at all the snowbirds that headed south anytime it got a little nippy. You could negotiate - in his day it was usually warmth in exchange for less food, or less light for more food, long nights for listening to his dad read aloud from one of their five books... You could even trick winter, if you could speak with the spirits of the season.

And winter _gave_ things. Leisure, when the days of spring, summer, and fall were an endless slog of work. Hauling water and feeding the animals and tilling the soil and harvesting and this and that and by the time you were done, you were so exhausted you couldn't think straight. At least in winter, the chores were light and if the days were short, well, you needed your rest, didn't you?

Spring, though, spring...

Spring brought the cold rain and heavy mud. It brought sick animals and sick family. It brought _work_ , in planting and lambing. Jack remembered spending entire weeks soaked to the bone, his clothes not having the chance to dry until summer began.

After he became a spirit, it got worse.

Spring brought the spring spirits, the ones that disdained him because he wasn't _winter_ , exactly, but autumn and early spring. From the first frost to the last, that was his term, and they didn't much like it.

And then spring had become embodied by a cranky, oversized rabbit that yelled at him. Jack had figured out he could usually get a nice reaction from Bunny, something to liven him up when he felt so tired.

Because spring was when he died. Spring was when his winter's work began to drag at him, turning his bones to lead and his muscles to water. The verbal spars with Bunny were usually the most awake he was, once the snow began to melt and the earth began to warm.

So yes, he'd seen spring as an enemy. One he constantly lost to.

Jack didn't like to lose.

And yet...

And yet, there wasn't much he liked better then ducking into the Home of Spring, after wrestling with a particularly difficult blizzard or undoing a summer spirit's mischief. (Some things were supposed to freeze, and if they were going to try and stop the natural course of things, not only was he going to mess up their homes but he was going to report the offender to Mother Nature, too.) Now that he was a Guardian, well, he had an open invitation to the Warren.

And to North's Workshop and Tooth's Palace. Technically he had one for Sandy's castle (a sand castle, and that just convinced him Sandy's sense of humour was on-par with his own) but he had no idea where it was parked. Maybe it floated around.

And when spring came around, when he got tired and needed Bunny to feel more awake, more real, well...

The frost spread if he was out and about, or relaxing in the Warren. And Bunny was always in the Warren, preparing for Easter.

They didn't argue so much, though. It'd been twenty years - almost twenty-one, just... what, another month? - and a lot had changed.

Jack grinned, and slowly turned his attention to Bunny. Easter had been early this year, early enough there'd still been a dusting of snow (and only a dusting. It was hard to hold back storms, but harder to disappoint the overgrown rabbit. Jack wasn't sure when he'd valued Bunny's happiness over his own comfort, but... it'd happened) and Jack had been lively enough to race Bunny from town to town.

It'd been fun.

Of course, Bunny was almost as tired from the aftermath of Easter as Jack was from the onset of spring, so they were both relaxing in the long grass, not talking. Jack had his thoughts to entertain him, though his mind worked molasses slow, and Bunny had a sketchbook.

The two of them being less than five feet apart, and not arguing, was probably the biggest change.

Jack took all the credit. Well... Bunny deserved about twelve percent of the credit, but most of it had been Jack. Sure, Bunny had gotten all _emotional_ first, and Jack felt bad about it because he didn't like it when Bunny was sad.

Okay, so he didn't like it when _anyone_ was sad, but he _hated_ it when Bunny was.

But he was the one who'd figured out why Bunny got sad, even before the rabbit did. And he was the one who'd decided what to do about it, and started the whole courtship thing they'd done all autumn and winter. It'd gone well, really well, until they could lie side by side without sniping at each other or competing for the title of "World's Snarkiest".

Though, obviously, Jack won, hands down, nine times out of ten.

On the other hand, maybe Bunny had mind-reading abilities, because he looked up as Jack thought that, and frowned.

"What?" he asked, doing his best not to sound defensive. Really.

"Just... thinking." Bunny looked away, which was kind of a shame. Jack was pretty sure he was absolutely shameless with how he felt about Bunny's eyes. And had been equally shameless in professing his adoration of them. In public.

It wasn't entirely his fault, there'd been that creepy spirit - some kind of minor deity, so she was a year-round figure - who'd been flirting with Bunny all evening. Jack wasn't about to sit back and let someone else flirt with his... well, crush at the time, though by the end of the party they were officially a couple. So he'd moved in and spouted poetic and honesty and he wasn't going to argue with the results.

Anyways, he'd saved his thoughts on the _rest_ of Bunny for private.

"Thinking about what?" he asked, dragging his mind back to the present. It didn't want to go; remembering that first evening as an official couple... sure, they hadn't done more than sit on a couch and hold hands, and talk until dawn, but it'd had more emotion and meaning than the time Jack had kissed Wendy, back when he'd been human and interested in courting girls.

Wendy had been nice.

Holding Bunny's hand and doing nothing more but talk had been _amazing_.

Bunny opened his mouth, and then he did his embarrassed thing. His chin got lower and his ears went back and his shoulders hunched up, like he was bracing for a blow. "It's spring," he said.

Was that supposed to be an answer? Jack blinked, and tilted his head. "Yeah?" he asked. It felt like... like this was going to be one of his late years. He was tired, sure, but not the way he was during the final week.

After all, he was still thinking straight.

Straight for him. He thought in fractals.

Bunny didn't say anything more. Jack gave him a few minutes, taking the opportunity to look... Bunny was interesting to look at. He was all contradictions. Soft fur and hard muscle. Really hard muscle, actually; Jack had experimented with dimes and abdominals, before Bunny smacked him upside the head for it. His eyes were bright, bright green, and sure, his gray fur was shiny and had those darker-than-smoke markings, but still. Gray. He moved quietly and spoke loudly; his words were harsh where his heart very much wasn't.

Jack liked looking at Bunny, a lot. Always had.

Though now, he liked touching, too. Bunny was warm, and Jack could encourage cuddles now without feeling too awkward about it.

He frowned, and rolled onto his side. "Bunny? I'm going to need more than that...?"

Bunny took a deep breath, and looked up at him. "Sorry, mate. I just... it's spring. And you're..."

Oh. Yeah. Jack nodded, and got comfortable. This was going to be the first time he died, while they were a couple. That was bound to be a little bit awkward. Or a lot, maybe. And make Bunny sad. And... He shifted restlessly, legs suddenly itchy, sparks of winter magic crawling under his skin. And maybe Bunny was having second thoughts. Maybe he didn't like the idea of being with someone who went away every summer.

"I'm sorry?" he offered. "It's not like I want to."

Which... he wasn't sure that was true or not. Because yeah, sometimes he overheard people talking about stuff - what, for example, was a _summer blockbuster_ and what made it so great? It was some kind of party? - and it sounded amazing, awesome, but then he'd remember that he couldn't ever experience it. And that was kind of disappointing. And now, winter was a time of work, not rest. He never had an off season, as such; even playing with the kids was a form of work, now.

But on the other hand, he just... he got so tired. It wasn't like he slept. He'd tried, now and then, and it just didn't work. Even Sandy couldn't make him drop off; the sand just made his eyes itch. His, well, his _death_ was the only time he got any rest.

"I know," Bunny said. "I... I know. I just don't like it. That you have to go through that, every year."

"It's not so bad," Jack offered, which was a total lie. Even the boring deaths kind of hurt at the end, because drowning did. Not that he'd ever told the others that, though he suspected North had guessed, but Jack relieved his first death every year. His lungs would flood, with what he didn't know, and his last memory was usually struggling to breathe. And that was just the boring deaths!

The not-so-boring were _painful_. He'd been stabbed in the heart, gutted, beheaded, torn literally limb from limb... Those were always, always painful. And the weather usually went a bit crazy if he was taken out early, too. He wasn't sure why, probably because he was the only winter spirit to care about keeping the weather tidy, since the others seemed perfectly happy to roam about cackling about the snow, but yeah.

He frowned, and reached for Bunny's hand. "If you - you don't want to -"

"No!" Bunny's grip was suddenly iron hard on his hand, only for the rabbit to recoil and let go almost violently. Jack would've felt hurt, except for the look on Bunny's face when he checked Jack's hand. For broken bones, going by the gentle prodding.

"I'm fine. It's okay. I'm tough, Cottontail, you won't break me."

Bunny sighed, and cradled Jack's hand in his. "Yeah, during winter," he murmured, but didn't otherwise contest Jack's claim. "I... I want us to, to stay us. I do. I just... worry."

Jack wiggled his fingertips against Bunny's palm. "About what?"

Bunny shook his head, and didn't reply.

Well, fine. If he was going to be like that... Jack's mock-anger collapsed like a pile of slush at the sight of Bunny's eyes. If the rabbit ever realized what a weapon he had, he'd have Jack behaving like a perfect gentleman in no time. One look and bam. Nice list forever, that's what it'd be.

At the moment, Bunny's eyes were shimmering the slightest bit, in a show of emotion Bunny was more comfortable with than Jack could ever be.

Wasn't his fault, just his upbringing. His parents hadn't been British, but the idea of the 'stiff upper lip' had been a popular one.

"You know what I'm worried about?" he asked, and wiggled his fingers again. Bunny looked up at him, the very picture of abject misery. "I'm going to be out of the picture for... what, four months? Five? And you're going to go to one of North's parties, why does he throw so many parties? He can barely stand most of the spirits that show up. So why do it?"

Bunny's lip twitched at that, one corner of his mouth ticking up. "Keep your friends close and your enemies sloshed."

"That makes as much sense as anything," Jack agreed. "But yeah. You'll go to one of these parties, or it won't even be a party, just you going out to sketch some climbing roses or whatever, and you'll meet some pretty spirit with better bone structure who doesn't go away half the year..."

"Highly unlikely," Bunny pointed out. "I spent millennia uninterested before you started harassing me."

Jack huffed. "Yeah, so?" He let go of his staff, and began stroking his fingers over Bunny's forehead with his now free hand. And if Bunny knew what that meant... ah, who cared? Bunny's fur was so soft, especially right over that ferny-flower marking...

"I'm not going to gawk at someone else while you're... gone."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," Jack admitted.

Bunny narrowed his eyes. "Oh?" he asked, and he didn't sound interested. More menacing, and not in a good way.

Jack should... probably explain. Yeah. Now.

"It's just, this, us... you're kind of getting a raw deal here. I mean, most of the time I'm up and about, you're not busy. But I am. And then when you're able to really relax, I'm... gone. And I _don't_ like the idea of you, like, sketching someone else, obsessively, but I'd understand if you did."

At that, the rabbit relaxed, and nodded. "Not gonna happen."

Jack snorted. How could Bunny know? He didn't see into the future, last Jack had known. And if Bunny said something about his emotions for Jack and blah blah blah, he was going to smack someone. Emotions changed. Valentine's Day card sentiments were worth less than the cardstock they were printed on.

"Wanna bet?" he asked, instead of sharing exactly what he was thinking.

"Jack, for me to sketch any of those spirits obsessively, they'd first have to get a working brain. Then they'd have to be a hell of a lot less annoying." Bunny paused, and added, "I'll admit the brain is possible. Everything's technically possible. But that and becoming tolerable? That's stretching things a bit."

"Pitch giving up the nightmare gig, dressing in floral tutus, and starting a slime mould rescue society," Jack countered.

Bunny looked _pained_. "Technically..."

Jack grinned, and wiggled across the grass until he could press up against Bunny. The rabbit seemed pleased enough by the action, if the warmth in those green, green eyes meant anything. And the arm that wrapped around his waist, that probably meant something too.

He maybe drifted off a little bit, because Bunny was warm and his eyes were bright and amused and so very green, Jack's favourite color. Everyone thought it had to be blue, because, well, his eyes and sweater and so on and so forth. Blue was a winter color, everyone said. And yeah, he liked blue well enough, but in his opinion green was the absolute best. Especially the shade Bunny's eyes were.

Of course, he could've been biased because _Bunny's eyes_ , but that wasn't the main factor.

He really only noticed Bunny moved because he couldn't stare into Bunny's eyes anymore. That was, well, it was a pity and a shame, actually, and he made a disgruntled sound because of it.

"Hey there, sheila." Bunny looked up at something behind Jack. "What brings you here?"

Baby Tooth was less than an ounce of weight on Jack's elbow. He closed his eyes and hummed, content just to feel that little bit of pressure, the two points that were her feet. Not even pressure, exactly, just... there. Like eyelashes on skin.

She twittered at Bunny, who chuckled and probably stroked a careful finger over the top of her head. "Yeah, I can understand wanting to do that, though he's not very active right now."

Another twitter. Jack could understand Baby Tooth, he just didn't care to bother right now. He was... Okay. Maybe it wasn't going to be a late thaw, because he did feel very tired, now. Tired enough to open his eyes, even when Bunny pressed his nose to Jack's forehead. Tired enough that he just stayed limp when Bunny shifted the both of them, until Bunny was sitting up and Jack was cradled in his arms.

"Ah, Jackie," Bunny whispered, and pressed his lips to Jack's cheek.

Jack... He wants to say he's sorry, because he is. Bunny shouldn't have to watch him die, again and again and again. He shouldn't have been so selfish, but he was, and now Bunny's hurting and it's his fault.

It was getting harder to breathe, to think, but for the first time in a long, long time he wanted to fight for that next breath. Because - because if he didn't take it, he'd blink and die and wake up on his lake, months later, having left Bunny alone and sad.

Pretty crappy timing to realize he'd give pretty much anything to keep from making Bunny sad.

That... probably had nothing to do with what happened next. Jack was sure.

Because just as he realized that, when he admitted, if only to himself, that Bunny's happiness was more important than _anything_ , he...

Well, it felt like he caught on fire.

Or on _something_ , anyways.

His bones felt like someone had replaced them with _molten_ lead, and his muscles like hot wax. That someone was molding and reshaping. It hurt, it hurt a lot, and he couldn't help but scream and convulse because nothing had ever hurt as bad as this before. Things were happening that he didn't have the words for - his _skull_ was stretching and reshaping, and his spine was doing _something_ , he didn't know what, it _hurt_ \- he couldn't breathe but he wasn't sure he had lungs to _breathe_ with -

And then the pain just... stopped.

Or it would have, if not for the screaming. Very loud. In his ear. Right in front of him. He shrieked in response, cringing back. He tried to clap his hands to his ears, but he didn't seem to _have_ hands. Just strangely flexible feet, and when the surface he was standing on moved, they flexed -

And then the screaming changed and climbed in pitch, and oh.

Jack scrambled off Bunny's lap, feeling strangely off balance - why was his chest so far forward? Why wasn't he falling flat on his face? - and where were his hands?! Bunny's screams tapered off into bitten off curses and other such cranky sounds. At least he was making noise, though Jack had to wonder a bit at how clear and crisp everything sounded. It felt like he could tell where something was, just by listening and somehow triangulating in.

It was _weird_.

Somewhere, a mini-tooth fairy was giggling.

Jack cracked one eye open, and, admittedly, flailed. Considering someone seemed to have given him acid and sent him on one hell of a trip, his reaction was perfectly justified.

The Warren was colourful, that was what happened when you took a bunch of flowers and stuck them somewhere they could bloom forever. But there was colourful and then there was trippy, and what Jack was looking at qualified as trippy. Solid coloured petals suddenly had stripes and spots and arrow-type markings in some new color, some eighth color - and something he'd read once popped up. Octarine, the color of magic, a greenish-yellow purple, impossible for people to normally perceive.

Well, he was looking at it right now, and he wished it'd stop flashing at him!

After a minute of standing, legs braced and arms spread for balance - and seriously, _where_ were his _hands_? - the new octarine color seemed to settle down into something less overwhelming. Sure, suddenly there were patterns and shimmering stuff and an odd sort of glow to everything, but it was just taking the normal Warren, already set to nine on the "visually overwhelming and awesome" scale, and turning it up two clicks to eleven. He could adjust.

He sucked in a lungful of air, and let it out slowly. It whistled strangely, which... didn't normally happen, but whatever, he'd deal with that just as soon as he'd checked Bunny and made sure everything was okay.

Jack carefully turned his head, to where his ears told him Bunny was, and froze again. At least he didn't fall over.

That new color, the octarine or whatever, that was nothing compared to Bunny.

How had he ever thought Bunny's fur was gray and boring? It wasn't, it was anything but. Shimmering color, like a rainbow oil slick, slid and flowed over his body. It was like - he had no idea, but it was awesome, amazing, better than anything Jack had ever seen before... and he'd seen a lot. Every time Bunny shifted the slightest bit, every inhale and exhale, the colors _danced_ over him. Living art.

Wow. That was just... wow.

The only detraction to Bunny's appearance was the surprisingly dull smear of blood over his thigh. He had his hands clamped down over what Jack assumed was the wound, and small trickles had managed to get through his fingers and wet his hands and leg.

"Bunny?" he asked, or tried to. What came out instead sounded like a strangled duck's quack.

Bunny looked up, and his eyes widened. His jaw dropped. He still looked amazing, even though he was gaping like a fish out of water.

Jack wasn't sure why, but he flapped his arms. There was... a surprising amount of resistance to that.

He eyed Bunny, and looked down at himself, realizing as he did that his eyeballs weren't moving in their sockets. He couldn't look sidelong at anything, and...

Oh. Well then.

He had feathers. And wings, which explained the lack of hands. And...

Jack screeched like a soaked and pissed off cat, and flailed his wings, and somehow ended up on his back. He stopped screeching.

Well. That was embarrassing.

Bunny moved into view, and Jack stared at him.

"Jack?"

He nodded, very carefully. Wow that was weird, his gaze moved with his head, which meant he just gave Bunny a blatant once-over.

... Actually, that was the complete opposite of a problem. He did it again, because it was a very good view.

"What the fuck, mate?"

Jack looked up at Bunny - oooh, his eyes were even more awesome and potently green - and tried to shrug. "Like I'm supposed to know?" he asked, and it came out as a kind of chitter.

Baby Tooth fluttered into view, and sat down on Bunny's shoulder. She was still giggling. In between incoherent chortles, she told them to go to the North Pole. Everything could be explained there.

Jack got up onto his feet, and shook himself off. Fine, then.

And then he'd get his voice back. And yell. So much yelling. What had just _happened_ , anyways?

* * *

When Bunny's tunnel finally let out just outside of the Workshop, they had managed to figure several things out about Jack's transformation.

One, it seemed that whatever he was, it was a mish-mash of different predatory birds. Bunny said - and Jack believed him - that head-wise, he looked mostly like a snowy owl, complete with fluffy feathers and a massive, hooked beak. Which - Bunny said, while apologizing for screaming immediately after Jack's transformation - was probably big enough to fit Bunny's head inside, with room to spare.

And, yeah, Jack would scream if that was suddenly shoved in his face, too.

The other thing they'd figured out was that he could walk a lot better than owls and the like normally did. Most birds hopped and waddled. Crows and ravens stalked, and so did Jack, but Bunny said Jack's legs were more like the caracara bird... and again, Jack believed him. Bunny sounded like he knew what he was talking about, and most of Jack's bird knowledge was kind of... limited. And slanted heavily towards Tooth and her helpers, who weren't actually birds, even though they did have feathers. So yeah, his experience and knowledge didn't really count.

"Just can't figure out your body and wings," Bunny said, hunching over against the wind. "Can't put where I've seen it before. I have, but probably not enough to remember straight off."

Jack nodded, which made his vision bob weirdly again, and turned to look back at himself. That was a new and rather cool feature - he could look at his own back, or in this case, his own tail. Which was, in his own opinion, pure peacock, though with a much smaller fan. The feathers were also more flowy, waving about more like kelp underwater than stiff-quilled feathers.

Unfortunately, with all the different bird species shoved together in his body, the parrots had been forgotten. He couldn't talk, though he tried. At least he sounded a lot more musical now than an hour ago, when they'd started walking.

The one thing they didn't touch on was his size. Sure, birds were a lot lighter, square inch for square inch, than mammals, because of the flying thing, but he'd gone from a weedy, barely-grown human man to a giant bird. _Giant_ bird. He had no idea what his wingspan was, but Bunny was six-foot-one if you included the ears, and standing up Jack could probably look down on _North_.

Just. Just look down on North. But still.

He was a big bird, that was all. And sure, spirits, but... if he had wings, he wanted to fly. And the square cube law was probably in effect, which probably meant he was stuck being an ostrich.

Though, again, spirits. So maybe not.

What he _really_ wanted, though, was to have his hands back.

And, y'know, the rest of him. But he could probably manage with feathers, and wings, and really sharp talons, as long as he had his hands and maybe his face. He could join Tooth in the Feathered Humanoid _and Sane_ Club.

North was waiting for them at the front door, rubbing his hands together and chortling. When he caught sight of them slogging through the snow - although in Jack's case, more like over the snow, because he didn't sink into even the most powdery of drifts - he beamed and held his arms open wide.

"I had not expected this result, but very happy!"

Jack paused in mid-step, and stared at North. Admittedly, he hadn't quite figured out his new, much more subtle facial expressions, so he was pretty sure he looked pissed off with everything, but... yeah. North's grin didn't get any bigger, but there was more than just a hint of mischief.

Of course North couldn't just explain what was going on, he had to bundle them off to the comfortable room they used for meetings, wrap several blankets around Bunny - and Jack was somewhat distracted by the octarine color flashing in the most unexpected of places, like some of the paint and woven into a few of the wool blankets - and at that they were joined by Tooth and Sandy, and Mother Nature.

Jack straightened up, suddenly towering over everyone but Her. Well. Maybe there wouldn't be yelling.

Maybe this had something to do with the way he'd felt like he was going to die, and then turned into a giant bird instead.

Tooth shone with an extra layer of color, not quite octarine but extremely shiny and distracting all the same. Jack followed her fluttering around the room until she sat down beside Bunny, and stole one of the blankets.

"Usually phoenix is red and gold," North said, presumably to Mother Nature. "But am thinking this is good, blue and white is very good for ice."

"Wot," Bunny asked, and shrugged out of the rest of the blankets. Jack walked over to stand next to Bunny, doing his best not to stalk and not succeeding very well. It didn't seem he could walk any other way. "Did you just say phoenix?"

Sandy nodded, and drifted up next to Jack's head. Jack did his best to smile, which basically meant his beak gapped open a little, and Sandy patted him once between the eyes. He'd gotten even more glittery, but it was still hard to understand what the shapes meant.

Especially since it was hard to focus on what the shapes were turning into, when he was so distracted by the movement.

"I believe you are curious about what has happened," Mother Nature said. Her voice echoed, as though she stood alone in an empty chamber, instead of the relatively cozy room filled with overstuffed furniture and thick carpeting.

"Well," Bunny said. "Yeah."

Jack turned to look at Bunny. That was an odd tone of voice for someone to take with Mother Nature. She was endlessly patient and generally forgiving, but no one ever offered her anything less than the utmost respect. Bad things happened when they did. Usually subtly bad things that could have just been bad luck, but obviously weren't.

"Bunnymund," She said. "Rest easy. And yes, my Frost, you will be able to attain human shape once more. Perhaps my old friend can teach you shapeshifting."

Yeah, that wasn't a question or suggestion, but an order. Still, if that old friend was Bunny... _Oooh_ , it was. Jack nodded, and settled his feathers with satisfaction.

"And," She said, once he was able to focus again, "You can fly in this shape. Phoenixes are exempt from the usual laws."

Even better.

"Which doesn't explain why Jack's a phoenix." Bunny rested one hand on the back of Jack's neck, and Jack nearly melted into a puddle of happy goo right there. If Bunny was a little weirded out by the way Jack tried to climb on his lap, fitting only his head and neck, he was nice enough not to mention it. And keep up with the petting. "Not that I mind, or anything," Bunny said, sounding a touch awkward, "But why?"

"Because we asked," Tooth said. "Jack..." He cracked one eye open and turned to look at her. She looked... sad, and sober. "We just, we hated the idea of you dying, every year, and it wasn't right and it wasn't fair to you. So we... asked. If there was anything that could be done."

"Besides," North added, and threw himself into a chair. It skidded back half a foot. "When you died early, weather went crazy. Seemed good idea to look into that, as well."

Mother Nature chuckled, and stepped up next to Sandy. "Even now, they make good arguments," She said. He nodded, and flashed a few pictograms at her. "Indeed."

Jack trilled, which was apparently the sound he made instead of humming now. He half-spread the wing that wasn't pressed up against the couch, and did his best to look inquisitive.

"I apologize that this was done without consulting you," Mother Nature said. After a bit of inspection, she chose a seat and sat down. "Although, one might say that all was done to speed up the natural progression of your evolving position."

What did that mean? Jack trilled again, managing to at least sound inquisitive this time.

"Surely you were aware of how the weather reacted, when you were killed early in the year?"

Of course. It was always exhausting, after, having to clean up the mess. And it seemed like it just got worse and worse each time. He really, truly had to wonder if he was the _only_ winter spirit that actually _cared_ about the weather.

Last time... well, he had still been tweaking everything back into place, even though it'd been two years ago, and only in January.

Remembering, he rubbed his cheek against Bunny's torso. Poor Bunny; Jack had bled all over him and North. He just wasn't about to go nuzzling North.

"The belief of the children is thus," Mother Nature said. "Jack Frost is _the_ spirit of winter. They know nothing of others, or believe them to be dust and gone. It is your legend that carries the strength of winter, now, even south of the equator."

Well, it wasn't his fault! Bunny had kissed him and they'd been in Australia and things had just _happened_.

She looked amused, as if She could read his mind. Which he really hoped She couldn't, because yeah... there were things he preferred to keep private, if only because they were hopelessly gooshy and emotional and Bunny related.

"Given another century, your transcendence from winter sprite to winter seasonal would have been a given, but the chaos wreaked between now and then by your early deaths would have become catastrophic." She brushed at Her skirt, and shrugged. "I trust you are not entirely displeased by this outcome? There are, after all, benefits."

Jack wasn't exactly inclined to be cranky about it, but then the benefits were explained. It was all he could do to keep from dancing in place, because they sounded awesome.

No more dying when spring hit Burgess. If he died at all, he'd respawn right away - though he really needed to come up with a better, cooler term for it - but Mother Nature wasn't sure how. Though his being a phoenix at the moment suggested it'd be awesome. He was probably going to end up a lot more powerful, though exactly how much She didn't know and he didn't care. He'd have authority over the other winter spirits, which would be awesome, because most of them were morons that needed a good kick in the pants, and it just went on, and on, and on.

His delighted singing and enthusiastic wing flapping seemed to get the message across pretty good.

Now, if only he could get his _hands_ back...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Jack got philosophical, then he got feathery. -grin- And yes, not only did he get his human body back, but no more dying come spring-time. He is Winter now, and Winter just moves south of the Equator when Summer sets up in the Northern Hemisphere. (Jack was so disappointed when he found out the Summer Blockbuster meant a movie. He had thought it was some kind of city wide block party with costumes.)
> 
> These days, if he dies, he has instant regen... into an egg for something like 6 to 8 seconds. Battles turn into a lovely game of "Protect the egg". One time they defeated the big bad, and Bunny painted the egg, and Jack came out multi-colored and unamused. For the record.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Five Times Jack Dies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221876) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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